Stories of the Day

I am sure that if the Left had its way, we’d just get rid of our flag entirely. “Today’s Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School Dist. (9th Cir. Feb. 27, 2014) upholds a California high school’s decision to forbid students from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. (See here and here for more on this case.) The court points out that the rights of students in public high schools are limited — under the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. School Dist. (1969), student speech could be restricted if “school authorities [can reasonably] forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities” stemming from the speech. And on the facts of this case, the court concludes, there was reason to think that the wearing of the T-shirts would lead to disruption. There had been threats of racial violence aimed at students who wore such shirts the year before. . . . This is a classic ‘heckler’s veto’ — thugs threatening to attack the speaker, and government officials suppressing the speech to prevent such violence.” Leaving aside the First Amendment aspects, this says terrible things about immigration and the state of our public schools.” K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Not safe to display American flag in American high school.

It’s official. Our country has lost its soul. “American flag, Confederate flag, what’s the difference? The court attached zero significance to the fact that we are talking here about the Stars and Stripes. The heckler’s veto prevails. Just don’t try the same thing with the Mexican flag; not in California. My takeaway from all of this is that our civilization is in a state of deep decline, from which it probably cannot recover.” 9th Circuit Holds that School Can Ban Display of American Flag

The ultimate goal (emphasis mine). “Why would the Gay Gestapo suddenly need to convince everyone that any act of faith must be viewed suspiciously as discrimination and “hate?” Forcing a bakery, Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-A or a photographer to either violate their religious beliefs or be destroyed is simply a test run. The real target is the church and temple. If the left can convince our society to force people of faith to violate their sacraments in the name of “equality,” why would we allow that to stop at the church door?” BRUCE:Why the veto of Arizona’s religious freedom bill is alarming

The hypocrisy on the Left never ceases to amaze me. “How about the time Reid pressured White House officials to expedite visa applications for dozens of foreign investors in a Las Vegas casino hotel project spearheaded by prominent Democratic donors, despite concerns about “suspicious financial activity” among those investors? “This one is going to be a major headache for us all because Sen. Reid’s office/staff is pushing hard and I just had a long yelling match on the phone,” an official with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services wrote to officials at the Department of Homeland Security in regard to the visa applications. By all means, Senator Reid, tell us more about your concern that powerful individuals are gaming the political system to enrich themselves and their allies.’” Harry Reid’s America

Stop it while we still can. “Via the Free Beacon, a snippet from the latest House hearing on O’s duty to faithfully execute the laws. These Turley clips always get attention because it’s gratifying to see at least one scholar willing to challenge the Unicorn Prince on his “virtuous” power grabs, but the whole point of his testimony, really, is to challenge Congress and the courts, not Obama. I think deep down he’s a fatalist about Obama’s overreach, and rightly so; the reason we have separation of powers, after all, is because we expect each branch to try to expand its authority. That’s what human beings handed power do. You don’t contain them by asking them to be more modest, you contain them by pitting them against other parts of the government which, in theory, will push back to rein them in. Turley’s real problem isn’t with O’s behavior, which is rational and in line with our cynical expectations for state actors clothed in authority. His problem is with the other branches, especially the courts, for refusing to provide the checking and balancing they’re supposed to.” Jonathan Turley on Obama’s executive overreach: We’re at a constitutional tipping point

Light weight. “Secretary of State John Kerry says Russian intervention would be a mistake. Alas, any such declaration from this administration carries the weight of a feather.” Putin’s Ukraine Gambit

Trouble. “The last source of uncertainty is Western leadership. It seems fair to say there are differences between the EU leadership and Washington. Ordinarily, those fractures might not be vitally important. But as President Obama contemplates the ruins of his “reset” policy, all the defects of his leadership are magnified in this crisis. Things really matter now; the time for “fast and loose” is over.” The Ukranian Crisis

Arizona

Setting a bad precedent. “What we are seeing here with Mr. Holder, Mr. Cooley’s bar, the Los Angeles Times, Harvard’s Ms. Korn and now Arizona, is a rising sentiment that the law or journalism or anything else that was once subject to legal or professional rules no longer matters. You don’t like the law and you are charged with enforcing it? Then screw it. You want to ban those who disagree with you on gay marriage? Go to it. After all, if it’s OK for David Cooley, why isn’t OK for Arizona? You run a big city newspaper and you want to protect the liberal faith on global warming? Then screw the dissenters and the science behind those dissenters. (Maybe in that case an FCC “monitor” should be assigned to the Times?) You don’t like conservative speech? Then ban it. You live in Arizona and don’t want to provide customer service to this or that segment of the public? Too bad for those affected.” Eric Holder’s Arizona

Big Government

Who works for whom again? “Evidence is accumulating of a corrupt bureaucratic culture in many, if not all, federal agencies. Revelations of lavish meetings at fancy hotels, featuring stupid but expensive custom-made videos emerged in the last couple of years. But even worse, cases of bureaucrats stealing from taxpayers by taking time off while still being paid high salaries have been reported recently, with their supervisors knowingly turning a blind eye to the taxpayer rip-off. The EPA’s highest-paid employee pretended to be a CIA agent and defrauded the taxpayers of about $900,000 in salary and travel expenses (often first class airfare and five star hotels).” Culture of corruption in federal bureaucracy

Elections

Please don’t blow this opportunity Republicans! “There’s the list that makes Harry Reid twitch. How wonderful it will be to see him live with the rules he has enacted, all the precedents he has dashed, all the abuses he brought about. Cory Gardner made a lot of people happy yesterday, but not nearly as happy as November will make them.” Democrat Senate Panic: Gardner Makes A Total Of 14 Democratic Seats Vulnerable

Start articulating a vision, or lose. AGAIN. “The current Republican passivity on policy ill serves the party’s objectives after 2014 as well. If Republicans take the Senate as well as the House, they will need to send popular conservative legislation to Obama — ideally to be signed, but more likely to be vetoed. That legislation will be taken up by the Republican presidential nominee, and those vetoes will serve to set up the 2016-election contrast. If Republicans do well in 2016, they will also set up the governing agenda for 2017. If they do not think through and advance conservative ideas now, though, they will not know what to do in the event that they have control of Capitol Hill — and will instead react to ill-considered proposals from their allies and opponents alike, and hand Democrats opportunities of their own. There is no point to Republicans’ setting any goal lower than the creation of a new majority that will govern more constructively, and more conservatively, than the last Republican majority did. Republicans ought to start building the case for conservative governance of our country now, this spring, today.” Against Complacency

Freedom of the Press

“Do MSM denizens, who are over-whelmingly Leftists, think the FCC had targeted only conservative or libertarian media? Don’t they know Pastor Niemӧller’s story? (He kept quiet about Nazi atrocities until it was too late.) Don’t they know that history shows, again and again, that totalitarians — call them Fascists, Nazis, Communists, whatever — invariably eliminate press freedoms? American conservatives and libertarians have to wage a two-front war. They must oppose government tyranny. They will also have to combat the MSM’s Left-wing bias. They’re doing both, of course, but unless conservatives and libertarians emerge victorious on both fronts, America’s future will be bleak.” Another Step toward Totalitarianism?

IRS

Presidential gag orders. “Few presidents understand the power of speech better than Barack Obama, and even fewer the power of denying it to others. That’s the context for understanding the White House’s unprecedented co-option of the Internal Revenue Service to implement a political campaign to shut up its critics and its opponents. Perhaps the biggest fiction of this past year was that the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups has been confronted, addressed and fixed. The opposite is true. The White House has used the scandal as an excuse to expand and formalize the abuse.” Strassel: All the President’s IRS Agents

Hollywood

Advice from one of the few conservative writers left in Hollywood. “You give up Hollywood and you give up the country. Game over. And as we all know, it’s almost over already. Want that? Well, if you do, you can skip the rest of this article. So… for those of you that are left… now more than ever is the time for conservatives and libertarians to take back at least some of the entertainment industry. Someone recently told me that Hollywood is like one of those football blowouts with a score of 90 for the liberals and 10 for the conservatives. We have to try to make it at least 70-30 (still a blowout, but there’s a glimmer of hope).” How Conservatives Can Take Back (Some of) Hollywood for Oscar Time

Tea Party

Don’t get complacent. Please. “It’s a mistake to focus on a single poll at any point in the election cycle, but this week’s New York Times survey is worth noting because a) the size of its survey means a smaller margin of error than in most polls and b) the Times’s pollster has a history of getting results that lean in favor of liberals in Democrats. If that’s the case, the Times poll spells Trouble for Democrats, with a capital T. Despite the internal fissures within the GOP, Republicans are favored by voters for Congress this fall by 42 percent to 39 percent. A big reason is President Obama’s dismal 41 percent approval rating, with only 38 percent approving of his handling of the economy. Among independents, only 31 percent like his economic performance. That may be one reason why independents now tilt by a decisive 43 percent to 29 percent in favor of Republican candidates for Congress this fall.” Three Cups of Tea

Vice President Biden

Muzzled. “Around the same time, Biden also gave the higher-ups in the campaign, like Strategist David Plouffe and manager Jim Messina reason to be upset after upstaging the President by coming out in support of gay marriage before the President. The two men met and Biden apologized, asserting that it was an accident- just another in Biden’s long history of gaffes- but insiders apparently felt that it may have been a calculated move to signal his loyalty to the progressives who felt they were being ignored by Obama. The apology was not enough and Obama’s staff reportedly turned hostile to the Vice President. He was banned from strategic planning meetings that he had been included in during the first campaign, and nixed plans for Biden to headline private dinners with potential fundraisers. They even tried to block not one but two possible candidates when the Vice President was trying to pick a new chief of staff.” ‘I was given every s*** job in the world by Obama’: Biden makes astonishing revelations about his relationship with the President as it’s claimed he was ‘frozen out’ by White House over gay gaffe

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!